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Poland to look into new allegations about secret CIA jail

24 January 2014 22:29 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Polish prosecutors investigating allegations the CIA ran a secret jail in a Polish forest said on Friday they will look into a newspaper report that gave new accounts about the alleged "black site," APA reports quoting Reuters

Human rights groups and lawyers have argued for years that Poland allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to use the site, an intelligence training academy in north-east Poland, to detain and interrogate men it suspected of being al Qaeda leaders.

On Thursday, The Washington Post newspaper cited what it said were former CIA officers as saying that the agency paid $15 million to Polish intelligence in 2003 for use of the site, handing over the cash in two cardboard boxes.

Piotr Kosmaty, spokesman for prosecutors in the Polish city of Krakow who are pursuing a criminal investigation into allegations about the facility, said it was possible the newspaper report contained evidence about the case.

"In the course of the investigation that is underway, we will analyze this Washington Post article and will include it in our investigation," Kosmaty told Reuters.

The Washington Post article said the CIA declined to comment when it inquired about the Polish site.

The case goes to the heart of the CIA's program of "extraordinary rendition" in which suspected al Qaeda militants were moved around the world and subjected to interrogation techniques that rights campaigners say amounted to torture.

It would be a crime if Polish officials colluded in any way in illegal detention or torture. Politicians who held senior posts at the time could be prosecuted.